Yesterday that was a perfect spring day. I took this picture just 3 miles from my front door. I was looking at that view, listening to a Skylark song and the previous night’s heavy rain gurgling down hidden culverts, Then the first verse from this Dylan Thomas poem came into my head and i had a few seconds of satori when I was so grateful to be alive, to be resolved to the whole fucking madness of existence and to the moment my death.
Is there a better place than the British Islands on a sunny spring day?
Nothing else to say really. Anyway Mr Thomas says it better:
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd449/jimathomas/File%2023-05-2016%2015%2024%2049.jpeg
Where is your front door?
SW Sheffield.
My sister is looking to move to that part of the world. Houses round there sell like hot cakes.
Not like these ones.
http://i1350.photobucket.com/albums/p773/minibreakfast/images_zps2r5nqfye.jpg
Ah, the joy of yellow-stickered goods. If it’s quiet, I always have a browse to see if there’s anything cheap I don’t need. If it’s busy I like to stand back and watch the feeding frenzy.
David Attenborough could make a documentary about it.
Blimey, we’ve got a packet of those in the cupboard. If I remember, I’ll try them then post back a review, of sorts.
So, down here in Southern Europe all I can say on this surprisingly cold where-are-those-icy-cold-winds-coming-from days: go bile yer heid…
Oh, to be in England
Now that April ‘s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
I’ll see your Robert Browning and raise you Gerard Manley Hopkins….
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
How nice to be in England
Now that England’s here
I stand upright in my wheelbarrow
And pretend I’m Boadicea.
English as tuppence,
Changing yet changeless as canal water,
Nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete,
Feudal, still-reactionary Rawlinson End.
If I had all the money I’d spent on drink, I’d spend it on drink.
Birds are singing hereabouts as I type. Getting ready for the night’s roosting in the nearby trees and shrubbery, having survived another day in this semi-hostile environment.
Sometimes I see them perched on the wooden fence by my kitchen window or flitting by. I have an extremely limited knowledge of which birds are which but I do appreciate them when I take note of their presence, which is undoubtedly not as often as I should do.
I love a sunburnt country…
Thank you all for the loveliness! When thinking of Sheffield before, “steel” was all that came to mind!
Lie down in the grass and listen to the river….
Lovely song Rob-meister
It is indeed BJBdude. Lovely mellow album too. Reminds one of lazy stoned warm summer afternoons in large gardens, woods, fields, and the Thin Borders in buzzing and shimmering shadows.
Behold O England!
Yet more lovely in spring – that Albion morn
Spritely she flies, never forlorn!
The Sun, She reflects down unto her green and pleasant daughter
And feels outshone…outdone…distraughter
Formif the She were extinguish’ d by a big sponge
The world will not, in darkness a-plunge
For England shines just as brilliant as She!
(But probably isn’t up the job, admittedly)
“For if”
Not
“formif the”
Looks stupid now.
And “up to the job”
This is going well.
It is, it is. Save me a Googling, who is it?
You won’t find it by googling. Inspired by the poetry on this thread I just bashed it out.
A work of genius Mr BC. Love the last rhyme pair.
“The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said”
(Larkin)